“You’re not faster than a bullet, dumbass. Keep that in mind next time you try any more scare tactics.” They circled each other and threw punches that increased in effort as they tried to get past the other’s guard.
“I’m not a kitten, Jaxon. I’ve faced scarier shit than a fucking citidiot with a gun.”
“Oh, now all that time you spent sliding down a hill in Whistler makes you faster than a bullet?”
“Fuck you, Jaxon. You’re talking out your ass. You board down an ice-carved mountainside, and I’ll check your shorts at the bottom.” Anger had Sloan’s eyeteeth elongated to the point that his words slurred slightly when he spoke.
“Right, that’s the mountainside that you broke your fucking neck on. Remember, the one that ended your supposed extreme career?” Part of Jaxon wanted Sloan to understand that seeing him in the hospital bed with a halo screwed into his head scared the hell out of him. Sloan was still a kid and needed to grow up.
Kaden carried a large platter of steaks and shouldered the two of them out of his way. “If you two would get your testosterone back under control and finish pissing all over each other’s territory, dinner’s ready.”
“So you’re going to be the mature one here, Kaden?” Jaxon went to shove his brother in the shoulder but missed and hit the platter his brother carried.
The scent of seared steaks and barbecued corn hung in the air as they all stared at the food that now littered the wood planks under their feet.
Kaden whipped the platter out over the railing onto the lawn. “Now you can make your own goddamn dinner, assholes.”
Two doors slammed. Out front, Kaden’s truck roared to life before racing down the drive in what sounded like an impressive spray of gravel. Almost at the same moment, screaming thrash metal started thumping from behind Sloan’s bedroom door.
Jaxon paced across the lawn and waited for his anger to siphon out of him, drawn out by the forest that surrounded them. What the hell was happening to them? Lately the littlest things dissolved into a massive fight. All he wanted to do was give Sloan shit for taking unnecessary risks. The chance of him getting hurt made him feel nauseous.
He didn’t worry about Kaden as much, but then Kaden was always the calm one. Up until the last few weeks, his younger brother was the first one to step between the two of them and break up any arguments, but now he seemed to be happy to let them beat the hell out of each other. That was when he wasn’t picking fights himself.
All his life Jaxon knew that his brothers would always be there. They often talked about sharing one woman, but unless things changed between them, they would be living apart and not speaking to each other. Sighing, he stopped to collect the platter Kaden had thrown and then started to clean up the deck. He should have approached this differently than storming out onto the deck, but fuck, he couldn’t stand the thought of losing his brothers. But if they couldn’t figure out how to live together soon, this incredible fissure that was growing between them might divide them for life.
Chapter Two
Carol McKade couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a small town. All the neighbors were in each other’s business, whispering gossip, ready to snub someone for any slight. This particular town had an additional detriment. They had bugs, bugs, and more bugs. The drive up to Ecstasy Lake was gorgeous. After what felt like a month of rainy days, the sun broke out this morning, and the temperature rose. Rolling the windows down, she turned up the music and tried to pretend that her life hadn’t taken a nosedive into the closest broken sewer main.
She smacked her hand against her steering wheel thinking about it. Three years it took her to get her business off the ground, only to discover that the city was going to pull funding and close her no-kill animal shelter. They didn’t care that she had almost a full house of animals that needed immediate homes. Thankfully, she managed to find other no-kill shelters to take them to, but now she had nothing left. What really hurt was that her boyfriend…ex-boyfriend, was behind it all. Looking back, the signs were all there, but she chose to ignore them.
He was her accountant but never had time to go over her books with her. She assumed that he would tell her if she was overspending. She wasn’t an idiot and was careful with her spending, keeping everything to a minimum. He continuously assured her she was doing fine.
His schedule increased. There were late nights at the office, and then he wanted to get an apartment in the city to cut down on commuting. First, it was a day here and there, but over the last couple of months, he only occasionally made an appearance at their townhouse. Not that she minded because it meant that she could spend more hours at the shelter without feeling guilty. Animals loved unconditionally.
She didn’t have any pets at home. David didn’t like to deal with them and found them a nuisance. This worked out because she preferred to be at the shelter where she could treat them all like her pets. They didn’t care if you weren’t built like a toothpick or always seemed to have cat, dog, or the occasional rabbit hair on almost all your clothes. Then the letter came from city hall that announced that she wasn’t eligible for funding anymore and was under investigation. When she tried to call, she was directed to one office after another. No one seemed to know anything about a letter being sent to her. Finally, she learned that her funding was recently diverted to another account.
Confused and angry, she drove to David’s office to talk to him and see if he had any ideas of what she could do to rectify the situation. As her accountant, she thought he would be looking out for her interests. Did he know about the other account? What she discovered was he arranged for her to think she lost her funding. Meanwhile, he pocketed it all. He didn’t even give her the satisfaction of seeing his ass nailed to that wall because he cleaned out their bank accounts and his office before disappearing. Cowardly asshole.
Now with a pending investigation into it all, any possible future funding had dried up. Cutbacks, she was told when she reapplied, but she had to wonder if that was really the case. Either way, she had next to nothing left. What was left of her belongings she packed into a storage unit and took her friend up on her invitation to come and visit and help out at her veterinary clinic.
Hiding might not be the best solution to her problems, but she decided to think of this as a vacation. She would reassess her life and make some well-thought-out decisions. Not that she had much to choose from since she had enough gas to get her up here but not back.
TC, her fluffy calico, leapt into the front seat, distracting her thoughts as he curled up in a sunny patch on the passenger seat. Doing so meant that he covered all her maps, but she didn’t have the heart to brush him off. She wasn’t able to keep all of her animals, but she couldn’t part with this lovable cat. No matter how she tried to lock him in his travel crate, the cat always managed to get loose. He was the Houdini of the feline world, and she adored him for it. Life was never boring with him in it.
Too bad his previous owners didn’t appreciate his character. They wanted a pristine life, and having a cat that repeatedly broke into the cupboards to play drove them to distraction. Not to mention the tumbleweeds of cat hair he left behind everywhere he went. They should have considered that before buying a cute fluffball for a kitten that grew up into a massive puffball of a cat. Her life might have gone to shit, but at least he still loved her.
Not one to wallow in sadness, she turned her attention to the beautiful scene beyond her windshield. Things always happened for a reason. Losing her shelter broke her heart, but when her friend Brenna phoned and asked if she would be willing to come up and take care of her clinic for a few weeks, she jumped at the chance. Brenna always spoke well of the small town she lived in, and even though Carol found herself in the middle of nowhere, she could understand the attraction.
She drove past a large sign that said “Welcome to Ecstasy Lake” but over the Ecs, someone had painted a backward E and an x, making it look like 3x. Strange, but Brenna always said her town was very unique
. According to her directions, this was where she was to make her first left, and the road plunged into the thick of the forest.
Her phone burst into a chorus of barking, alerting her to an incoming call. She hit the “hands free” button on her console to answer it. This way she didn’t have to pull over.
“Hey, girlfriend! How close are you?”
“Just passed the ‘welcome to’ sign. Did you know someone’s vandalized it?”
“That happened a long time ago. Some smart-ass took a can of paint to it.” Brenna’s melodic voice sounded in her car. “No one’s gotten around to fixing it. So you’re almost here. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I’m looking forward to visiting. Is there anything you want me to pick up on my way?”
“No, I’m good, thanks anyway. Do you have the directions I e-mailed you?”
“Yes, TC’s sleeping on them.”
“I can’t wait to see the little Houdini. That little ball of fluff is going to have a blast here, and you will, too.”
“If you say so.”
“Trust me, Carol. You’re never going to want to leave here.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m only staying to help out for a few weeks. Then I’m going back to find David and kick his ass all over city hall and get my funding back.”
“If you say so, but I was at The Shack, and Catherine read my tea leaves. She said that I am going to have a visitor who will never leave.”
Carol laughed with her friend. Brenna took all sorts of crazy fortune-telling things so seriously. Carol could never figure out how a woman as incredibly smart as her friend could be so gullible. “You must be having another visitor because you know I can’t survive without my Starbucks and Winners.”
“Wait till you get here. I’ll bet you fall in love with the lake, and we have lots of animals up here.”
“Yes, I’ve seen lots of your wildlife already.” Spraying windshield washer on her windshield, her wiper blades smeared crushed bugs across her line of vision.
“Brenna, there isn’t any such thing as a were-insect, right?”
“No, why?” She could hear the amusement in her friend’s voice.
“Just checking.” Carol sprayed more solution on her windshield, and the wipers cleaned off the residual smears. After Brenna was injured when they lived together, her father, Gordon, told Carol everything about their alter egos. Brenna was flying out in a couple days to stay with her pregnant sister. For obvious reasons, shape-shifters didn’t go to the hospital to have their babies. Since Carol already knew of their existence, it made sense for her to come and take care of the clinic while Brenna was gone. “I’m almost there. See you in a few minutes.”
“As soon as you get here, we’ll go over to the Sugar Hut to get a couple milkshakes to celebrate your finally making it.”
Carol debated on telling Brenna not to bother. Milkshakes weren’t going to help her get to her goal weight. In the end, she simply promised to see her friend shortly.
It took her another eight minutes to get to Main Street. This was cottage country, and even though the weekend after next marked Labour Day, Brenna told her the area would stay busy until Thanksgiving. She turned down a bunch of different streets until finally making it to Main Street. For a tourist town they didn’t make it easy to find.
Emerging from the densely wooded drive was almost magical. The trees dropped away and treated her to a beautiful view of the sparkling lake to her right. She drove slowly down the main avenue. Buildings lined up against one side of the road, and Ecstasy Lake dominated the view to the right. A wide boardwalk lined each side of the road with lots of people milling up and down the street.
She passed a small hotel, the ice cream parlor, and a small restaurant, and then a couple buildings lined the lake side of the road. As she cruised past, she saw three elderly ladies sitting in rocking chairs in front of one store, knitting away. Two of them waved to her, and she waved back. The third pulled what looked to be an iPhone from her pocket and held it up, taking a picture.
Okay, strange but not that bad.
Next door to them was something that looked like a museum dedicated to a water monster and then an office of sorts. On her left, she passed an arcade and a couple more tourist-type shops before pulling into the animal clinic. Considering how small this town was, Carol didn’t expect Brenna’s animal clinic to be busy. But her friend explained that the city tourists often brought their very domesticated animals up north with them. Inevitably, these poor pets ended up getting hurt because often their owners never stopped to consider that a city dog would have no idea how to behave in a forest. Brenna often had to deal with pets infested with ticks or fleas, animals suffering from a mouth full of porcupine quills, or scratches and bites from sharp-clawed forest animals.
She didn’t have her car in park before Brenna burst out from the front door and ran toward her. “You made it!”
Brenna met her with an exuberant hug, and Carol felt her eyes start to well up. After all the emotional upheaval she’d had in the past weeks, Brenna’s hug made her feel as though she was truly welcome somewhere.
* * * *
With TC happily leaping from platform to platform in the “cat room” of the clinic and Brenna’s assistant, River, watching the counter, she and Brenna went for a walk. The sun inched closer to the tree line, creating lengthening shadows across the main street from the trees behind the buildings.
“So the dirtbag stole your money? What a bastard. I knew I didn’t like him.”
“I appreciate your coming in on my side, but you never met him.”
“Sweetheart, any man who would rather stay at an apartment instead of coming home to you must be either in the closet or having an affair.”
“It wasn’t anything like that. Aside from the theft, he wasn’t the only one to blame. We are both workaholics, I was just as happy having him in the city so I could stay at my shelter and take care of things there and not feel guilty.”
“Did he give you any reason to want to come home more often?”
Carol wasn’t entirely certain what her friend was talking about. What possible thing could he have done to make her want to come home?
“That’s what I thought.”
They wandered over to the ice cream shop as they spoke and decided to get scoops of ice cream instead of a milkshake. Brenna had a double scoop of peanut butter chocolate. Carol’s choice of sherbet, because it was lower fat, might have been inconsequential to the shop owner, but Brenna eyed her choice as they wandered down the boardwalk. “Sherbet? You’re not doing one of those binge diets, are you? There isn’t anything wrong with the way you look.”
“So says the woman who makes men want to fall to their knees in front of her.”
“Yeah, well I wish. It’s been an incredibly long time since anyone was on their knees around me, and almost longer since I was on my knees.” Brenna sighed and shrugged her shoulders as if it was all out of her control.
“You’re kidding me. I remember you had a different date almost every weekend in University.”
“I wasn’t that bad.”
Carol rolled her eyes and pretended to agree. They both knew that Brenna was lying.
“All the guys around here have known me since I was a kid.”
They crossed the street and headed down the stairs to the boardwalk in front of the lake. “What about that accountant your father set you up with?”
“Um, well let’s see…accountant that my father approves of. Like that wasn’t doomed to fail. Thank god both my moms stopped him from messing with my love life anymore.”
Carol jumped at the opportunity to change the subject. “How is your family?”
“Oh, awesome as usual. My little sisters are the cutest little bugs. Wait till you meet them. They’ll crawl into your heart in two seconds.”
“Your dad has me on his e-mail list for pictures.” Carol always looked forward to opening messages from Gordon and seeing how big Hope and Wil
low were getting. “I feel bad it’s taken me this long to get up here.”
“They’re growing up quickly. Willow slept through the night for the first time last week and scared the hell out of my parents. She must have known how badly she frightened them because mom said she hasn’t done it since.”
Carol listened to her friend talk about her family, but her attention was on the expanse of lake in front of her. Ecstasy Lake sparkled in the summer sun, but there was something eerie about it. As if it held ancient secrets below the black surface. Either that or she’d read Stephen King’s “The Raft” too many times as a kid, because that was what this lake made her think of. If she suddenly noticed a colourful oil slick on the surface, then she was running and never coming back.
“Oh, and Hope has decided that she likes the name Lulu better and wants us to call her that.”
That snapped Carol’s attention back to the conversation. “How did your sister come up with that?”
“Carol!” A loud booming voice jolted her out of her thoughts before she found herself wrapped in a warm embrace. “I heard you made it. How was your drive?”
“Hi, Gordon.” Brenna’s father was the sweetest man Carol ever met. He always gave her a big hug and made her feel like part of the family. He was one of those men who looked better the older he got, only Gordon didn’t look his age in the slightest. Not many people knew his secret, but after an accident in college that involved Brenna, Carol discovered there was a lot more to her best friend’s family than simply being stunning people. “The drive up here was beautiful once I got off Highway 400. I love the way it smells here.”
“That’s called fresh air, darling, and we have lots of it up here away from your big smoggy city.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head before reaching out and pulling Brenna into a big hug. “Hello, baby girl.”
“Dad, I’m thirty-five. I keep telling you that your babies are at home.” Despite her words, Brenna snuggled into her father’s embrace.
Davies, Corrine - Embraced by Fur [3xtasy Lake 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2
